It is very difficult to measure rates of partner or family violence. It is hard to know if rates of assault are actually rising or falling, or if it is reporting that is rising and falling. We don’t know how to understand fluctuations in the numbers of people who actually make complaints, how the police understand complaints, how complaints lead to arrests, and the relationship between arrests and actual convictions. We don’t have a clear sense of how the police or the courts differentiate between Abuse and Conflict.
